Politics and Religion

Dianne Feinstein and the Anti-Catholic Bigots

Imagine her questioning the “dogma” of a Jewish or Islamic nominee.

It came out, thanks to the WikiLeaks disclosures during the 2016 campaign, that Hillary Clinton’s aides were trading nasty notes about Catholics, calling them “severely backwards.” The Dems had long been the party of anti-Catholic bigotry and the exposed emails only confirmed that reputation.

American bishops appointed by Pope Francis didn’t make a peep about Hillary’s anti-Catholic bigotry for the simple reason that they share it. They, too, see believing Catholics as “severely backwards.” Many of the Francis-appointed bishops, such as Chicago’s Blasé Cupich, were in the tank for Hillary. Patrick McGrath, the bishop of San Jose, California, used propaganda from the Hillary campaign as his crib notes, penning a ludicrous column to parishioners in which he said that Donald Trump “borders on the seditious.”

But even with this help, even after decades of left-wing infiltration of the Church, Hillary couldn’t win the Catholic vote. Trump’s gibe at the Al Smith dinner — “here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics” — rang true for many Catholics in the pews.

In defeat, one might have thought that the Dems would make more of an effort to conceal their anti-Catholic bigotry. But they haven’t. It was on full display this week, as they browbeat the mild-mannered federal appeals court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, whose Catholicism Democratic senators found very troubling. The inimitably bumptious Dianne Feinstein put their anti-Catholic bigotry in memorable form, starkly saying to Barrett: “When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”

Imagine a Republican making a similar declaration to a Jewish nominee. It would end his career. But Feinstein, who Politico says is fighting off potential liberal challengers, will probably campaign and fundraise off it.

Dick Durbin, whose hackishness is so cartoonish he seems less believable than a Simpsons character, asked Barrett: “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” Durbin let her know that he didn’t care for that phrase, as he prefers his Catholicism heretical.

Al Franken questioned her appearances before “hate groups,” such as the time she spoke to law students at an event sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom. Franken likened the appearance to the acceptance of a speaking gig organized by Pol Pot. A few minutes later, as the stupidity of the analogy began to dawn on him, he admitted his Pol Pot reference was “extreme.”

The senators, still Borking after all these years, dug up a law article Barrett wrote 20 years earlier about “Catholic Judges in Capital Cases.” Why they found the article unsettling isn’t clear, as Barrett, with her co-author, argued that Catholic judges should opt out of death penalty cases owing to the alleged immorality of that punishment. In other words, Barrett agreed in the article with liberal Dems on the death penalty.

So it turns out that the “dogma” living “loudly” within her, at least on that issue, isn’t even Catholic dogma. It is just an opinion, held by many post-Vatican II churchmen, that the magisterium of the Church regards the death penalty as immoral. But it doesn’t and never has. The constant teaching of the Church affirms the justice of the death penalty.

It is a measure of the Democrats’ anti-Catholic bigotry that they can’t even abide pro-life Catholic judges who oppose the death penalty. Barrett’s other sin, of course, is that she was nominated by Donald Trump.

By “dogma,” Dianne Feinstein means any view that deviates from the Democratic agenda. She has no problem with the “dogma” of Hillary-voting Muslims who support Sharia law over the Constitution.

It takes a lot to look like a bigger dingbat than her California colleague Kamala Harris, but Feinstein pulled it off this week. The stupidity of her comment to Barrett puts one in mind of the intellectual whipping Feinstein received at the hands of Ted Cruz after she foolishly tried her hand at Second Amendment theorizing. “I am not a sixth grader,” she whimpered after Cruz exposed her ignorance. “I am reasonably well-educated, and I thank you for the lecture.”

Barrett was too nice to “thank” Feinstein for the lecture on Catholicism or point out the outrageousness of her anti-Catholic religious test for judgeships. But that is what it amounts to. For the Dems, as the Podesta emails brought out and these hearings reinforce, the only good Catholic is a bad one.